Just because Square Enix is releasing Dragon Quest IX on the DS, doesn't mean they're putting out an easy game. On the contrary, DQIX is going to be difficult says series creator Yuji Horii.

We make the game to be quite hard. It's harder than any of the previous titles, and the enemies are also powerful... We strengthened the bosses, stuff like that.

The rationale for the amped up difficulty is that these days people can always find out information on the internet — like that's part of the game experience. A harder DQIX is compounded by the fact that there is only one data save slot. Ouch!